


and the kick is so divine

by lilydaydreams



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anorexia, Azula (Avatar)-centric, Background Maiko, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Dark, Eating Disorders, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Mental Health Issues, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, POV Azula (Avatar), Trauma, Unreliable Narrator, Zuko (Avatar) is a Good Brother, he's certainly doing his best to be a good brother anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:39:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28499952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilydaydreams/pseuds/lilydaydreams
Summary: Consumed by pressure to be the perfect daughter, Azula develops an eating disorder. Zuko is stubbornly persistent in trying to help.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57





	and the kick is so divine

**Author's Note:**

> TW for mention of self harm, detailed description of and focus on food/eating disorders, discussion of suicidal ideation, mention and brief discussion of homophobia and comphet.  
> This is much darker than other fics I’ve posted on here before—I tend to write fluffy, romantic stuff—and I urge you only to read it if you think you are in a headspace where it won’t trigger or upset you. I see Azula as a character who struggles deeply with perfectionism and control as a result of her trauma. This fic is based on my own struggles with an ED as well as a psychological research review I did recently on anorexic behaviors. I chose to focus on the development of Azula’s illness, rather than her recovery, honestly because I’m still in recovery and it’s such a complicated and nonlinear process that I don’t quite have the perspective to make sense of all of it yet. Lots of love.

**January**

In the same week in January, two unfortunate things occur. Azula’s boyfriend, Chan, breaks up with her, and she fails an economics test for the first time.

While she doesn’t have any particular fondness for Chan  _ or _ for economics, both these events were not part of her plan. Being good enough involved both academic excellence in an appropriate field, and dating someone who her father deemed an acceptable match. A failing test score will be an obstacle as she strives to graduate  _ summa cum laude _ from Agni University, and replacing Chan will be a pain in the ass, too.

Having a relationship that her father approved of, even if it was with somebody she didn’t particularly like, tends to make everything go more smoothly. Azula never seeks out her father’s company voluntarily, but she does speak to him sometimes and occasionally visits home. He had always seemed vaguely pleased that she was seeing someone who was a good student, popular, and in Ozai’s words, was “raised right.” To the best of her understanding, this more or less means that Chan’s father and her father had gone to business school together in the eighties.

All that was to say that Chan had been a useful fixture in her life. She faintly recognizes that “useful” isn’t a word that most girls would use to describe their boyfriends, but Azula wasn’t most girls. Chan being out of her life has perks—mostly the fact that she won’t have to pretend to like making out with him anymore—but his absence means the loss of most of her social circle and all her regular study spots, as well as the trusty safety net of  _ Oh, no, don’t worry, I’m not a lesbian, this is my boyfriend right here _ . 

Finding a suitable replacement for Chan will have to come later, though, if she doesn’t want her econ grade to tank. Night after night, she finds herself in a deserted study room on the fifth floor of the library, accompanied only by an iced coffee and one of the only salads from the dining hall that she finds edible.

Azula has always been a rather picky eater. She doesn’t eat when she’s bored or stressed, and she rarely has cravings for sugary or salty foods. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for her to fall into skipping meals. Really, it’s an accident at first.

Her father has some choice words for her when she speaks to him on the phone and makes the mistake of being honest. In his view, she’s driven Chan off, screwing a business deal between Ozai and Chan’s father than she hadn’t even been aware of before. He tells her she’s let him down, let the family down, disappointed him—not just in terms of her silly little breakup, of course, but with regard to the “downward spiral” he perceives her grades, extracurriculars, and social life to be on. She can’t bring herself to eat, not after that. She doesn’t deserve food that night, she decides.

* * *

**February**

Azula adjusts to going to bed with a gnawing feeling in her stomach, even if she has food available to her just feet away in her fridge. She isn’t sure why—it would only take a few minutes to get up and make herself a sandwich or a bowl of rice—but after so many long, late nights in her usual study room with only a salad, hunger feels oddly familiar. Even comforting. Sometimes, if she waits it out long enough, the cramping pains and persistent growling in her stomach cease, exhaustion and lightness sweeping over her like a warm blanket. 

_ Accident. Habit. Familiarity. Comfort. Relief.  _ She isn’t quite sure when or how that progression happened, why her body and mind so easily fell into a pattern of starving herself, but it did.

She doesn’t like the way Mai and Ty Lee look at her when she goes with them to lunch one day. Mai stares at her with scrutinizing concern, Ty Lee with something resembling pity, as Azula picks at her salad and eats it slowly, bit by bit, and tells them with forced optimism about how she’s doing. 

_ I’m feeling fine after Chan and I broke up. I’m going to move onto some guy who’s better than Chan ever was. Yes, it’s going to be a guy. Don’t be ridiculous. _

_ Yes, everything’s perfectly fine with my dad right now, Mai, I don’t know what Zuzu’s been saying. _

_ Of course I’m eating and sleeping like a normal person, Ty Lee. Why do you even ask? I’m eating this salad because I  _ like _ how it tastes, is that illegal now? _

The questions begin to enrage her, make her think about things she doesn’t want to think about, period, let alone when she’s out in a public place and her whole body is achy and tired. After a few pointed prods about Mai’s relationship with Azula’s brother and some nasty rumors Azula had heard regarding Ty Lee’s own dating life, there’s nothing left in their gaze besides anger. She knows how anger looks, how to deal with it, how to sublimate it so it can’t hurt her anymore. Pity, on the other hand, is foreign and unacceptable.

That’s why it doesn’t bother her when Mai and Ty Lee, the latter in frustrated tears, get up and leave abruptly in response to her taunting. It doesn’t bother her at all, but Azula doesn’t finish her salad after that.

* * *

**March**

Deprivation makes her feel light, detached, even bizarrely powerful, but her body still cries out for food. She punishes it, sometimes, denying it sustenance after she does something wrong, like when she botches a presentation for class or slips up and says something she shouldn’t while on the phone with her father. The inverse applies too: after she aces her statistics final, she allows herself a plate of pasta for the first time in weeks.

She’s never disliked her body before, and she certainly recognizes that her angular, increasingly skeletal frame isn’t attractive in any normal sense of the word, but she still wants it smaller and smaller and smaller. The sharp lines of her ribs, visible up to where her breasts should be, give her a sick sense of satisfaction, even accomplishment.

_ I did this _ , she thinks, encircling her left wrist with her index finger and her thumb just to see if she can.  _ I had the control for this _ . She tries to pinch the fat on her abdomen, finds nothing, and suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore that Mai and Ty Lee still aren’t talking to her after her outburst at them the previous month.

Most of the time, when she isn’t studying, she lies in bed, motionless. It’s easy to stay there, in a blissed out haze of dizziness and detachment. Her body and mind are exhausted, yes, but lying completely still with a blank mind is so much easier than having a whirlwind of thoughts about her family, her academics, her complete lack of a social life, or that pretty girl in her national security class who she sometimes wants to kiss. Staring at the ceiling, feeling nothing at all but emptiness, is simple.

* * *

**April**

A sudden knock on her apartment door startles her. She can’t imagine who it could be, and part of her assumes the person has the wrong apartment number. The knock comes again, and she gets out of bed to open the door. Her flannel is pulled tight around her to defend against the cold that seems to seep into her bones all the time now, no matter how high she turns the thermostat up.

Azula opens the door, bracing herself against the wall to fight the wave of dizziness that comes every time she stands. It’ll pass in a moment. 

It’s Zuko.

_ Fuck off _ , she says to him in her head.  _ I can’t deal with whatever this is about right now _ . But she is too tired to force the words out, and he comes in.

“Why are you here?” she finally manages. A good hostess would ask him if he wants a beverage, inquire after his day. She figures she’s being nice enough just letting him into her space.

“I wanted to check on you.”

She barks out a short, bitter laugh. They don’t  _ do _ that in her family, not unless you count the kinds of performance evaluations Ozai does over the phone, seeing whether his children are living up to his impossibly high standards, as checking on each other. “No, why are you really here?”

“I’m serious,” Zuko says. “I’m concerned about you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sure you are. Did Dad send you here to spy on me?”

He looks at her like she’s delusional, like their father hasn’t used them before to keep tabs on each other. “Azula, Mai told me you haven’t spoken to her or Ty Lee since February.”

“They haven’t spoken to me,” Azula insists stubbornly. They’re probably expecting an apology for the things Azula said, but they shouldn’t hold their breath. Apologies just mean you didn’t have the conviction to commit to your choices, that you’d retract your words or actions at the sign of a challenge. That’s what her father always said, anyway. 

“Azula, what’s going on? You can talk to me. You don’t look so good,” he pleads with her. He’s right, if the messy hair, too-thin frame, and sunken eyes that greet her in the mirror every morning are anything to go by. Still, the comment irks her.

“Everything’s fine, Zuzu,” she says, shepherding him to the door. “What do you care, anyway?” 

He looks at her incredulously, like it’s obvious. “You’re my sister, of course I care how you’re doing.” Zuko has always been odd like that, thinking they owe something to each other simply by virtue of being born to the same parents. Thinking she’ll believe him when he barges in like this and tries to pretend to be invested in her life. 

“I appreciate the effort,” she says, pushing him out the door. “But save it.” He protests on the other side of the door for a while, the words muffled enough that she can’t hear him, but he finally gives up and leaves.

* * *

**May**

It’s all fun and games until her hair starts falling out.

_ You always had such pretty hair, _ her mother says to her one day after she runs a brush through it and several clumps fall out, as if she’s shedding like a dog.  _ Why not take care of yourself better?  _ She whips around in the bathroom, looking for her mother so she can argue back, tell her she has no business telling Azula what to do after abandoning their family, but there is no one there.

Later, when she’s more lucid and she’s managed to force down some cereal, she checks her scalp, alarmed by the amount of hair that’s been falling out every time she brushes her hair or showers. There are no bald spots, not yet, but it’s certainly thinner than it used to be. She’s afraid that putting it up in her usual bun will make things even worse, so she wears it down.

It’s not just her hair, either. She barely eats anymore, but she hasn’t lost any more weight. Instead, her fingernails are brittle and break all the time, her skin is dry and flaky, and she notices new bruises on her body all the time that she can’t remember getting. Her menstrual cycle is regulated with hormonal birth control, but she suspects it would have ceased by now if her body was left to its own devices.

The not eating thing was useful at first. It blunted the feelings that needed to be blunted, let her control something even as everything else in her life went to shit. But it’s outlived its usefulness, and when something is no longer useful to Azula, she must dispose of it. So she orders a sandwich from her favorite restaurant, pops a multivitamin, and resolves to stop...well, whatever it is she’s been doing.

She manages to eat it. The whole thing. But she doesn’t like how it feels like she’s choking down something that was once her favorite food. She doesn’t like the wave of overwhelming, inexplicable despair and self-loathing that hits her once she’s finished, so powerful that she curls up in a ball and sobs on her bed. And she especially doesn’t like how her stomach reacts to getting a good meal for once, cramping and twisting as if she’s just ingested poison instead of the food she needs.

* * *

**June**

Somehow, Azula limps through the remainder of the semester and passes her classes. Even so, her GPA is lower than it’s ever been, and she knows there’ll be hell to pay when she visits home.

Fortunately, whatever antics Zuko’s been up to this semester have taken center stage, and Azula isn’t targeted incessantly as the disappointment child. Yet her father is cold to her, makes clear in no uncertain terms that it is unacceptable that she has slipped so much over the past few months. She nods and promises him that she’ll get it together, bring up her grades and get a handle on her extracurriculars as soon as she has the chance. 

Her father is an observant, watchful man, and he certainly takes in her thin, almost fragile frame when she comes home, notices how she barely eats, but he doesn’t remark on it. Azula is equal parts relieved and disappointed: she certainly doesn’t want to give an explanation of the twisted psychological processes that have gotten her to this point, but a small part of her had hoped he might be concerned about her wellbeing. 

Zuko, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. She wishes he would leave her alone, but he hounds her constantly.

“You look awful,” he says bluntly the first time he manages to catch her emerging from her room.

“Really, Zuko, you couldn’t think of any more creative insults?” she responds to him breezily, knowing damn well that’s not what he means.

He tries a different tactic. “I’m going to cook something soon,” he says. “Eat lunch with me?”

_ Yes _ , her body says. Zuko’s not a bad cook, and she’s consumed little in the past couple days besides Diet Coke and the occasional piece of fruit. “No thanks,” she says, playing it off as casually as she can. “I’m not hungry.”

“Azula, you can’t keep pretending nothing’s wrong,” he says sternly. She wonders when he decided to commit so wholeheartedly to the big brother act. “I know you’re starving yourself. You can’t keep this up forever.”

He’s right, of course he’s right, and she hates it. Doesn’t he know how desperately she wants it to stop? How she wishes she could just click reset and go back to normal? She dreams of food, fantasizes about it like she used to fantasize about sex, longs to be able to eat the things she once loved without hating herself and her body afterwards. It’s so simple, in his mind, and she hates how simple it makes it seem. So she lashes out.

“Thanks for your concern, Zuzu.” Her tone is innocent, but the words that follow are  _ almost _ the most vicious thing she can think of. “How are your razor blades doing lately?”

His expression goes from shocked, like he thought she didn’t know, to scandalized, like he assumed she would never stoop so low, to completely cold. “You’re fucked up, Azula,” he tells her, like she doesn’t already know  _ that _ too, and stomps into his room, slamming the door.

* * *

**July**

Because the universe is cruel and has it out for her, the apartment Azula was set to live in for the next year somehow gets  _ flooded _ and suddenly, she’s in need of somewhere to stay. She can live with her father, which is a nightmarish possibility that she’d never even considered after graduating from high school.

“Or you can stay with me,” Zuko offers. “I have an extra bedroom,” he adds, because of course he does. For all of Ozai’s flaws, he does tend to be generous about throwing them rent money.

He’s been a little withdrawn with her after the things she said last time they talked, and she thinks there is a hint of smugness to his face. Like he finally has the upper hand, he has some kind of power over her and her living situation. She hates it.

But if the choice is between cohabitating with her smug, insufferable, endlessly irritating brother and reliving the first eighteen hellish years of her life, it’s an easy choice.

Azula doesn’t have that many things to move. She’s never seen the point of having little trinkets around just for decoration, in keeping things for sentimental value. Even so, it’s difficult to carry her boxes into her new place and she gets winded from it. Enough that Zuko notices and jumps on it, asking if she needs any help carrying them. She does, of course, but just on principle, she refuses any assistance.

Living with him is fine at first. Mai comes over sometimes, and she offers Azula a cool nod and nothing more. Zuko is busy with an internship and Azula is preoccupied with a few online classes she’s taking in an attempt to boost her GPA. Things are even peaceful.

Until Zuko decides to get in her business again. 

He’s staring her down, standing in the kitchen for no apparent reason. She raises her eyebrows at him as she downs her third Diet Coke of the day. 

“Do you have something to say, Zuzu? Out with it.”

“This isn’t working for you, Azula,” he says seriously.

“What, this new shirt?” she asks, tone blasé. “I thought it was quite flattering, actually, but what do you know about fashion?”

“Not the shirt,” he tells her. “Although the shirt might be a better look if you weren’t emaciated.” She gives him her most dramatic eye roll in response.

“You try to be perfect, to do everything right so Dad can’t tear you down, but it’s not going to work,” he continues. “You’ve clearly developed an eating disorder. We share a kitchen and groceries, you know, so don’t even bother trying to deny it. You’ve driven away your best friends and you’re just acting like you don’t care about that. And look, despite your best efforts to convince everybody otherwise, we’ve all known since middle school that you’re gay, so—”

She cuts him off. That’s enough of his little monologue. “ _ Shut up,”  _ she says. “You have no right to say any of that. You don’t know me or who I am.”

“Yeah, I do.” His arms are crossed, face unreadable. “You’re my sister, and I’m watching you ruin your life, run yourself into the ground, in some attempt at being perfect in a way that doesn’t even exist.”

“Of course  _ you _ would think so,” she says, taking a step forward into his space. She is shaking with anger, wants to push him, but her tone is icy and measured. “You’ve always been content with inadequacy. That’s why only one of us has a scar.”

Azula ends up stalking past him, choosing not to push or punch or physically fight him. What she’s just said will hurt for a while. Long enough, maybe, to get him off her back about everything. To get the message across that he needs to leave her alone. 

For the rest of the day, she hides out in her room, a nauseous, unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach that has nothing to do with lack of food this time around. She thinks maybe it’s guilt: bringing up his burn scar, the tangible evidence that mars him of their father’s rage, was a step far, even for her. Worse, even, than deflecting by mentioning his self-harm.

She has almost made up her mind to, God forbid,  _ apologize  _ to him, when she hears him leave the apartment that night. Oh well. Maybe it’s for the best—now she won’t say anything she doesn’t actually mean. Making her way out of her room, she braces herself against the wall for balance, relieved she doesn’t have to hide her weakness and lightheadedness now that she’s alone in the apartment.

There is a slightly burnt casserole on the kitchen counter, with a sticky note placed next to it.

_ Azula _ , it says in Zuko’s loopy handwriting,  _ eat some of this. _

She heats up a few bites. 

* * *

**August**

It’s a week later when Azula knocks on Zuko’s door to apologize. She’s been avoiding him diligently since their argument.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and he stares at her like she’s suddenly grown an additional limb. In all fairness, she’d never thought she’d be saying those words to him either. The hunger has worn her down somehow, made her soft. “I lashed out, and I shouldn’t have said the things I did either time you tried to talk to me about what’s going on with me.”

It takes a long time for him to respond, and he studies her carefully before saying anything. Azula doesn’t blame him. It’s probably a smart move to be skeptical. She wouldn’t trust herself either. Despite understanding the delay, why it’s taking him so long to say anything, she feels a desperate, pathetic need for him to accept her apology, for him to accept  _ her _ . The Azula of a year ago would have found it laughable that she’d ever care what Zuko thought, that she’d care that much for anyone’s opinion other than her father’s, yet here she is.

Whatever he sees in her face must convince him of her sincerity, because he gives her a soft, reluctant smile. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I wish I hadn’t pushed so hard. It’s just….I’m worried about you. I don’t want to keep watching you struggle without doing anything.”

She thinks about telling him to drop it. There’s something so frustrating about how he continues to press the issue after she’s made it so clear that she wants him to shut up. It’s like Sisyphus and his rock, going up that hill over and over again no matter how futile. Zuko has always been annoying that way.

Instead, she tells him the truth.

“I just don’t know what to do. I just want to make it all stop. How do I make it stop, Zuko?” she pleads, and only realizes she’s begun to cry when she hears her own voice crack. 

He lifts his arms as if to hug her, but seems to reconsider, gripping her arm instead and guiding her across their apartment to the kitchen table. She sits down quietly, her face streaked with tears, and stares blankly at the wall. 

“If I make a smoothie with fruit and yogurt, will you drink some of it?” Zuko asks gently, busying himself in the kitchen.

She thinks it over for a moment. “I’m not sure how much, but okay.”

Two smoothies later, she feels better than she has in weeks. Some of the achiness has left her body, if only temporarily, and the painful pushback she expected from her own stomach is noticeably absent. Her body seems to find smoothies more acceptable than solid food. She tells this to Zuko, and he seems pleased.

“You’re the strongest person I know, Azula,” he tells her, although she can’t fathom how he could possibly have anything kind to say to her after all the cruel things she’s said to him. “You’re going to get through this. We can talk about your options, what you wanna do—support groups, doctors, therapy, even inpatient treatment. I’m here for you, okay?”

“Promise?” she asks him, not recognizing how small and vulnerable her own voice sounds, and it’s like they’re little kids again, before their mother left and their father got angrier and everything went to shit.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> As previously mentioned, this fic is based primarily on my own struggles with anorexia, which I developed somewhat gradually and in response to a feeling that my life was spiraling out of control and that I had no autonomy over anything besides my own body. As many people who have struggled with this disease (or, as briefly mentioned, with self harm) could tell you, what starts as a coping mechanism can quickly take over your life and become addictive. Please take care of yourself and get help if you need it. And eat something if you're hungry: for me and for Zuko and for anybody else who loves you!


End file.
